By Paul Moses.

Newsday, April 30, 1991

One man said police officers punched and kicked him in the groin so ferociously that he became impotent and had problems urinating. The city settled his lawsuit for $900,000.

Another man said a police officer beat him so badly with a nightstick that he had to have an eye removed. That case cost the city $750,000.

In another case, a passerby gave the Civilian Complaint Review Board the last name of a police officer he saw allegedly beating an unresisting bicycle messenger with a nightstick. The board couldn't figure out who the officer was and closed the case. But the messenger filed a civil suit, and the city paid him $350,000 to settle.

These three cases were among the most costly police-brutality claims New York City settled last year. Police say the officers in the three cases weren't disciplined, and city attorneys maintain the cases were settled not because of any wrongdoing, but out of fear that inflamed jurors would award much larger sums in verdicts.

A review by New York Newsday of the 10 largest brutality claims in 1990 found that the 10 cases alone cost taxpayers $6.7 million  - greater than the budget of some small city agencies.

In most of the cases, the officers involved were not disciplined. The city maintains that they're not guilty of the brutality claims it nonetheless paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle.

Most of the cases are fought quietly and settled without publicity. All told, the city shelled out $9.3 million for 94 police brutality claims in 1990. With additional claims for false arrests, the total figure paid out was more than $11 million last year. And in the same year, 451 new lawsuits against the city over alleged beatings and shootings were filed, according to records of the city comptroller.

A survey by the New York Law Journal found that the cost of settlements and verdicts over claims for police shootings, assaults and false arrests has increased sharply since the early 1980s, when the annual pricetag ranged from $1.7 million to $3.7 million.

While plaintiffs and their attorneys tend to see big settlements as vindication, city attorneys don't. They caution that even big numbers don't necessarily mean the city believes its police officers are guilty.

Officers were indicted in connection with three of the 10 cases surveyed, two of them involving the 1985 "stun gun" assaults. In the remaining seven cases, the Civilian Complaint Review Board and the New York Police Department internal disciplinary trial bureau had no record of imposing any discipline on the officers involved, said Sgt. Peter Sweeney, a police spokesman.

City officials maintain that's not a sign of weakness in disciplining officers for brutality. Big settlements are paid to avoid paying even bigger jury verdicts, said attorney Lorna Goodman, spokeswoman for the city corporation counsel. "Juries tend to be very sympathetic to injured plaintiffs suing deep pockets," she said.

One such sympathetic plaintiff, she said, was an ambulette driver who is a father and an honorably discharged veteran. The Bronx man got a $900,000 settlement in a suit that charged police rendered him impotent because of a beating to his groin, according to court and city records. The officers were identified in court records as Stephen P. Hernandez and Montgomery J. Delaney.

The plaintiff's lawyer, Steven Wildstein, said the man was on his way to pick up his daughter for a trip to the Bronx Zoo on Memorial Day weekend in 1985 when police mistook him for a homicide suspect.

According to Goodman, the police said the man responded to them with profanity when stopped and had to be wrestled to be handcuffed. Police arrested the man for resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration, but the charges were dismissed.
 
Goodman said no departmental or criminal charges were filed against the officers involved in an alleged assault with nightsticks on Frank Casteneda, who lost an eye because of the incident and settled his lawsuit last year for $750,000. A friend who also alleged he was beaten settled for $50,000.

Goodman said the lack of departmental charges meant police rejected allegations made by Casteneda, 47, in connection with an incident on March 12, 1983. Casteneda maintained he was beaten up after wisecracking in response to their order for him to leave his girlfriend's apartment, where he'd been involved in a dispute.

"Every trial before a jury is a real risk that the city will be found liable," Goodman said when asked why the case was settled for such a large amount.

Plaintiffs' attorneys maintain that the city settles police brutality cases only when the facts, unearthed and scrutinized in a long pre-trial process, favor the alleged victims.

"It's simplistic to say `Well, if nothing happened, why did you pay $500,000?' " Goodman responded. "We did it to avoid paying $2 million." Verdicts in the Bronx are 150 percent larger than those in neighboring Westchester County, she said.

The city's risk can be seen in the case of William Easley, who was awarded a $6.2-million verdict from a Bronx jury on March 25. It was later reduced by a judge to $1.7 million, said his attorney, Harold S. Herman.

Herman said the jury found that police had reason to arrest Easley, who had been involved in a fight with his girlfriend, but favored the charge that the officers used excessive force by beating him up. Herman said his client suffered a broken leg.

The largest settlement last year  -  $2 million  -  went to a dancer from the Bronx who was shot by a police officer under disputed circumstances on May 1, 1986. Rademas Febles, 34, lost the use of his legs as a result of the shooting and, he alleged, negligent medical care at the city's North Central Bronx Hospital. A city doctor allegedly failed to notice that a bullet had lodged near Febles' spine.

Goodman said the city was especially concerned about the medical malpractice claim. As for the police, she said, the officer who shot Febles was searching for a gunman who looked like Febles. "The police thought he was holding a gun," Goodman said.

Febles was acquitted of aggravated assault on a police officer and sued, claiming he was framed. His lawyer, Michael Maizes, said that shortly after the trial began last June at State Supreme Court in the Bronx, dozens of police officers raided Febles' apartment on the Grand Concourse. Police were responding to a false, anonymous tip that Febles was holding a detective at gunpoint, Maizes said.

Attorneys for many of the plaintiffs said they advise their clients not to pursue complaints with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the police agency that looks into brutality claims, because they regard it as ineffective.

The review board closed its investigation of a complaint involving an alleged assault that cost the city $350,000 last year, according to court records. It involved a bicycle messenger who contended that a police officer, wrongly believing the messenger's bicycle was stolen, beat him with a nightstick at 54th Street and Madison Avenue on Dec. 14, 1982.

Two people who said they were not involved in the incident reported it to the review board. One of them, according to court papers, reported that the messenger didn't resist and gave a physical description of the officer, the name on his nametag and a partial badge number.

The review board closed the case because it did not know who the victim was, had no record of an arrest at that location and did not have a badge number to match the one offered by the witness. But the board's report did not say whether it had tried to find an officer "Moore," the name reported by the passerby.

Meanwhile, the messenger, Domingo Ortiz, filed suit. Through the legal process, his lawyer, Lori Ehrlich, discovered the citizen complaints and found out that an Officer Gregory Moore had recorded issuing a summons to Ortiz at the time and place of the alleged beating.

The city settled before trial. Ehrlich takes that as a sign that Ortiz' complaint was valid. "The case had to substantiate itself for the city of New York to pay $350,000 in damages," Ehrlich said.

Sandra Marsh, executive director of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, said the board's procedures have been revamped since the 1982 incident. "Our mandate is to investigate the cases and let the chips fall where they may," she said.

In some of the cases surveyed, criminal charges were pressed against the police. Two officers accused of torturing Queens teenager Mark Davidson with an electronic "stun gun" in 1985 were convicted of assault. Davidson settled his case in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn for $450,000. In similar cases in Queens, Juan Rentas got $400,000 and Everton Evelyn settled for $150,000.

In another case, two police officers  -  John Artman and John Murphy  -  were acquitted in 1985 of criminal assault charges in connection with a May 17, 1983, incident. But in a civil trial last July at State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the jury found the city liable for false arrest and assault on Seung Sik Park, awarding him $372,000. The same jury found the city owed nothing to Park's brother, who claimed he also was assaulted. Park, a 25-year-old Rutgers University student when the incident occurred, suffered a skull fracture and broken leg and was hospitalized for 2 1/2 months, according to court papers.

Criminal charges against Park  -  attempted murder and resisting arrest  -  were dismissed, said his attorney, Walter G. Alton Jr.

"We thought they [the officers] were in the right, especially because they were criminally tried and acquitted," said Goodman, the city spokeswoman.

Other cases among the top 10 went to jury verdicts, as well. A jury at federal court in Manhattan awarded Egyptian-American businessman Labib Ismail $800,000, because of allegations that a police officer broke his rib in an assault outside his Manhattan home in 1983. The amount increased with interest to $909,000.

A Manhattan jury in an unrelated case awarded $261,642 to Tracey Brock, who said a police officer pushed his head through a window inside a station house on Nov. 22, 1987. The jury found two officers, Robert Stanton and Michael Deery, liable for false arrest and Officer Russell Spatafora liable for assault.

The city contended that Spatafora had tried to protect himself when an unruly Brock attempted to kick him, and pushed Brock, whose back or shoulder broke the window.

In court papers, the city called the jury's verdict "irrational" because Brock didn't have cuts on his face. The officers involved were not disciplined by the review board or by the police trial bureau, police said.

Like many people who take their complaints to court, Brock did not pursue his case with the Civilian Complaint Review Board. "I have serious doubts about whether it's effective," said his attorney, Paul Schneyer.

Criminal charges against Brock, including resisting arrest, were dropped.

But most cases were settled, quietly.

Largest Payments In Settling Cases

These are the 10 largest police-brutality claims New York City paid in 1990:

Rademas Febles . . . shot by a police officer May 1, 1986 . . . medical treatment allegedly botched by a city doctor . . . settled for $2 million.

Labib Ismail . . . cracked rib in alleged beating by officer issuing a parking ticket Oct. 11, 1983 . . . jury award is $909,000, including interest.

Bronx man, name withheld . . . impotent as a result of alleged kicking and beating by officers who mistook him on May 27, 1985, for homicide suspect . . . settled for $900,000.

Frank Casteneda . . . lost eye because of alleged beating with nightstick on March 12, 1983 . . . settled for $750,000, $50,000 for co-defendant.

Mark Davidson . . . victim of police use of a "stun gun" on April 17, 1985 . . . settled for $450,000.

Juan Rentas . . . victim of police use of a "stun gun" on April 4, 1985 . . . settled for $400,000.

Vincent Antonucci and five others . . . allege they were beaten in a dispute in Soho on July 4, 1986 . . . settled for $380,000.

Seung Sik Park . . . allegedly beaten with a nightstick on May 17, 1983 . . . jury award is $372,000.

Domingo Ortiz . . . allegedly beaten with a nightstick in an Oct. 14, 1982, dispute over a bicycle . . . settled for $350,000.

Tracey Brock . . . allegedly had head pushed through window by police on Nov. 22, 1987 . . . jury award is $261,642.

Sources: New York City Comptroller's Office, court records.